


Phoenix Rising

by multiplefandomfan



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hand-waving-science, How to tag!?, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not A Fix-It, Obadiah being a dick, POV Steve Rogers, Past Abuse, Sort of AU, Starvation, Steve did not think of the consequences, Time Travel, Uncertain Ending, broken tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 21:02:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10816689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multiplefandomfan/pseuds/multiplefandomfan
Summary: Steve assumes that Tony was abused by Howard. Post a far-too-quick conversation with Reed Richards, he finds a way to go back in time and fix the situation by having a threatening talk with Howard. Too bad things don't go the way he intended...





	Phoenix Rising

**Author's Note:**

> The science described in this story is completely logical. I have spent years researching it. It is definitely, 100% not comic-book hand-wavey stuff. Honest. 
> 
> Not quite sure where this came from, really...

Steve did not want to wake up. Did not want to open his eyes. Refused to.

Behind his tightly clenched eyelids life was safe, peaceful. It was dark with no oppressive sights of sort-of-but-not-quite teammates arranged on a hospital bed like some form of discarded doll. 

Behind his eyelids life was controllable. He didn’t have to face what his ill-thought out actions had cost his friend. He’d had the best of intentions! He had thought that he was doing the correct thing… 

Behind his eyelids there were no worries. No confused teammates. No confused SHIELD operatives. The world made sense. It was a common enough thought to contemplate, one that many people seemed to ponder over in idle moments of recreation; what would happen if I weren’t alive? Would the world be different? Do I really matter? Steve was being granted the rare opportunity. He was seeing that question be answered. 

The steady, repetitive beeping refused to allow him to truly drift into his own head. _beep. Beep. Bee-_. One muscled hand shot out in irritation, keen on closing off the infernal machines that kept track of his sort of friend’s life. The hand paused, frozen in motion as the fingers slowly curled towards the palm so as to form a fist before returning to its owners lap. Those machines were important. Far more important than any momentary injection of frustration, no matter how potent it could possibly feel. 

How had it all gone so wrong? 

A weary huff expelled itself through pale pink tinged lips as Steve Rogers, one Captain America, took himself in hand and opened his eyes, fixing his piercing gaze straight away on one Tony Stark. Sort of friend. Sort of teammate. Sort of… nothing, now. 

How could he fix this? Fix it without fucking it up further? It had all seemed so simple just a few days ago…

He’d been having a breakfast meeting with Reed Richards. They had got to talking about their respective teammates, and Steve had completely by accident dropped into the conversation how concerned he was with Tony’s upbringing; the man was infuriatingly sensitive to any form of criticism, constructive or not, from Steve. He could handle it from literally anyone else, Natasha, Clint, Bruce… he could even take advice from Fury! 

But not Steve.

As soon as Steve opened his mouth to say anything that could be construed as negative, then Tony’s shoulders would fly up. His mouth would gain a line of tension. His fists would clench. He’d listen to the words, but wouldn’t be able take them in! They seemed to hurt him, almost. Steve had spoken to Natasha regarding the situation, and she had speculated that his father had abused him. Steve knew for certain he had held Tony to ridiculous standards, and had frequently compared his son to the unreachable plinth. The Great! The Flawless! The Pinnacle of Perfection! Captain America. 

Each time Tony reacted in this way, it felt like a knife was being driven into Steve’s back; that someone who he had liked, respected, could bring up their child in this way… Could go so far as to actively hurt them. To cause emotional damage that still affected them so many years later… 

During this frustrated speech, Reeds had leaned forward with sudden eagerness with that _look_ in his eye. The one that Steve attributed to sleep-deprived scientific geniuses with an idea in their senseless skulls which simply _had_ to happen. He had braced himself, ready for Reed to start spouting some impossible-sounding nonsense. He had certainly not expected Richards to ask him if he would like to fix this situation. 

Richards had proceeded to explain with wild, flying gestures and complicated terminology, that he had somehow designed a …thing… that would allow someone to go back in time for a short period. It wasn’t perfect, and the technology tended to cause someone’s particles to vibrate so much that they tended to explode… but the supersoldier serum should theoretically prevent that from happening. And did Steve want to accompany Richards back to his lab and they could test whether that was true? If it was, then Steve could go back in time for about half an hour and talk some sense into Howard. 

It was possibly a sign of how frustrated and upset Steve, the Man with a Plan, was with the whole situation that he agreed after only a moment’s thought. Some great tactician he was. Just…the thought of being able to make at least one of his teammates upbringings better. The chance of seeing an element of his past again! Emotions overrode reason.

A mistake that Steve would come to deeply regret. 

The tests had come back successful, and Steve had been sent backwards without difficulty. The pair had managed to pin down a time when they knew that Howard and Maria Stark would be driving to a Gala – the newspapers of the time had provided the date and time of the gala, and had explained that it had been opened by the genius Howard Stark with his beautiful wife in tow (it set Steve’s modernised teeth on edge that Maria had not once been referred to by name in the article. Her only import had clearly been as a decoration) 

Still, the article had given them sufficient information to work out a rough time when Howard and Maria would be arriving. Why?! Why had they both been so caught up in what they were about to do? Why did they rush it? Not do their research? Not take a moment to actually _think_!   
It went flawlessly. Steve had turned up in full armour, eyes straight away hunting around for Howard’s car. It had taken about an hour for his eyes to spot the vehicle come careening down the quiet street. Steve had frowned at the sight of Howard’s reckless driving, even as the thought of ‘like father, like son’ crossed his mind. Then. Then it had happened. 

He’d met Howard’s eyes through the windscreen. 

He saw Howard’s double take. 

He saw Howard’s jaw drop. His skin pale. 

He watched as the man lost control of the vehicle. It jerked to the side as though kicked by some gigantic lifeform. 

It ran straight into the side of a house, the driver’s door crumpling like a pillow. The bonnet curving inwards. The front window shattering. The spray of blood.

He didn’t hear the screeching of the tyres, the screams, the almighty crash. 

He didn’t have time to take more than a step forward before he shimmered, his arm outstretched, and disappeared, leaving the few people who had noticed him to whisper amongst themselves that the ghost of Captain America had disapproved so strongly of Howard Stark’s drunken and drugged lifestyle that he had brought about his demise. 

Stock crashed.

Whispers and rumours were abound that Stark’s genius had all been a lie; he’d stolen ideas from other companies. Kept secrets from the military. Had been responsible for Captain America’s death due to outfitting him with faulty weapons. That clearly had been why the ghost of Captain America had sought his revenge. 

Stark Industries faded away, went bankrupt. Obadiah Stane, grief stricken, spoke up about all the atrocities that Howard Stark had committed. How he had worked so hard to keep the other man on the straight and narrow, but had failed. His penance would be taking in the Stark Boy and trying to bring him up correctly. He was still young, nine years old, Stane would bring him up out of the media eye. Hopefully he would be able to turn the young lad away from the lifestyle. 

The Stark name drifted away into time as the Stane Star rose. His company name? Phoenix Industries. A Phoenix. Born from the ashes of Stark Industries. 

Steve had woken in a foreign bed, in an impersonal room that he immediately identified as quarters in the SHIELD headquarters. 

Confusion had been rife for far too long – the Avengers were still a thing. As were SHIELD. But they didn’t all live together, they weren’t the…family that they had been. Yes, they fought well together, but Clint was far more guarded and really only relaxed with Natasha. Natasha was definitely Natasha, and absolutely never Tasha. Agent Coulson was still alive, that was a large bonus. 

Bucky… Bucky was an Avenger – Steve still needed to get used to that. Thor was not. He had returned to Asgard soon after Loki’s defeat and had not seen cause to return. 

Technology wasn’t anywhere near where it had been – touchscreen phones were relatively new and didn’t have as many apps. Medical equipment wasn’t as sophisticated, particularly things like prosthetics. Things were just… different. Odd. Not right. Global politics were vastly shifted. America was not the superpower that it had been; the threat of its weapons, Stark Industries weapons, had not been enough to deter combat. 

And no one knew what had happened to Tony Stark – the other Avengers looked at him as though he were mad when he first asked. It had taken them some time to believe that he wasn’t being mind-controlled by some villain, and was only when he was able to talk about sufficiently personal things that anyone truly began to believe him. 

It had not taken him long to find out that Phoenix Industries had been dismantled about ten days previously – Stane had been double dealing, surprise surprise. 

One of the first things which Steve did, was try to find out what happened to Tony. He’d just disappeared, it seemed. Steve refused to believe that. He hunted. He followed up on paper trails. Conducted interviews. Got involved with some thoroughly shady individuals. 

Two solid days of investigation, aided by a curious Natasha and Clint, had led him to a solid steel door in an old shipping container. A few solid hits had seen the metal crumple as easily as that car bonnet. Inside had been a horror show – a skeletal creature, breath only being forced through its lungs through sheer force of will, skin discoloured by a litany of bruises and scrapes, all only astonishing in their sheer number… Skin so pale it had to have been literally years since it had been bathed in proper sunlight. The only natural light afforded by a small, dust-entrenched window several feet. 

The room, if it could be called that, was tiny, if Steve were to lay down flat fully stretched out, his fingers and toes would have been able to brush each edge. Height wise it was tall enough, but… the claustrophobia that must’ve been induced by the space… Let alone the chill that the air held. No fripperies dangled from the walls – nothing to keep any warmth within a metal container during the frigid winter months. Nothing was present to cool down a room which must have been truly sweltering during the heights of summer. Nothing showed of any personality other than sketches and diagrams that seemed to litter the room. 

Nothing. 

Nothing was present to distract Captain America and entourage from the figure that lay with rasping breath on a pile of tattered rags that must have served as a bed. A paper plate lay a few feet away, completely clean of any and all crumbs, indeed parts of it looked as though they had been nibbled away at by teeth far too large to be rats or mice. Perhaps it had been nibbled at by a human who was growing more and more desperate for anything to place within his stomach. 

A paper cup was placed neatly next to the ruined plate, its bottom long dissolved away from being re-used on too many occasions. 

“Tony…”  
Steve had breathed, his eyes finally focusing on the crippled figure. The two agents had been less frozen; Natasha had already been on the phone calling in backup whilst Clint had knelt down next to the juddering frame. Steve had taken a moment to be impressed that neither teammate had allowed an awareness of the stench emanating from the figure to cross their face. As Tony had run out of strength, it had been obvious that personal hygiene had taken a hit, the man had obviously defecated himself at some point, and his clothes seemed saturated in an acrid smelling liquid which must have been urine. 

Steve blanched, before making his way purposefully to the creature on the ground. The man who hadn’t responded to Clint’s quiet mutterings. “Tony,” he breathed again. “I’m so, so sorry.” 

Steve had hurriedly removed his jacket and covered up the not-billionaire, keen to try to help him retain at least a semblance of warmth. He’d then proceeded to kneel there, stroking the unconscious forms hair softly as Natasha and Clint began to catalogue all that was within the room, keen to find further evidence against Obadiah Stane.

Time seemed to flow more rapidly from then, bringing Steve to this current moment in time when he is sitting in the surprisingly comfortable hospital chair, willing himself to remain asleep so he didn’t have to observe the results of his meddling with time. 

Steve was paying for this private room personally; Tony was no longer a billionaire – he had no ties to Phoenix Industries whatsoever, so there was no way legally any of that could fall on him. He had nothing. People were only interested in him as a sidenote of evidence of the further horrors that Obadiah Stane had committed – they didn’t seem to register that this man had been under Obadiah’s tender mercies since nine years old. He was barely a person to them. Just…just a piece of evidence. 

No one cared. No one knew what his mental state would be like when he eventually woke up. Clint and Natasha had popped by several times, but it was obvious that they were there more to support Steve rather than out of personally caring for Tony. Yes, they were horrified at the state he was in, but there was no personal investment the way there would have been previously. 

How could he fix this? There was nothing he could do. Nothing. Steve kept his gaze fixed on the unconscious man before him, willing for… something to happen. Anything. For Tony to become a Phoenix and rise out of the ashes of his horrific life. For him to open his eyes with a whispered ‘Hey Winghead’ and grin, before grimacing in pain. For Natasha, Clint, anyone to be sitting on one of those empty chairs with him as they worried themselves sick over their injured billionaire. For Pepper… Rhodey… Who knew where they were. Bruce. Thor. 

How could he not fix this? How could he just sit here and not do anything. What could he do? Reed Richards was just a normal scientist; the Fantastic Four didn’t exist. The machine didn’t exist. It would be years… decades…

How.

Steve closed his eyes once more and pretended to be asleep.


End file.
